Category: Life technologies
How to Tune the Education System to Produce Narcissuses and Napoleons
“School prepares us for a world that doesn’t exist”
Albert Camus
In 2025, the Ig Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the late American scientist Dr. William B. Bean for his meticulous study of the growth rate of his own fingernail (“for persistently recording and analyzing the rate of growth of one of his fingernails”). For 35 long years, the researcher dedicated himself to this painstaking labor. The results of his scientific investigations were published in six articles.
The parody of the Nobel Prize is presented annually by the American magazine Annals of Improbable Research. In a solemn ceremony, they honor achievements that “make people LAUGH, and then THINK.”
The editorial board of THE GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY, as expected, first laughed long and hard, and then fell into deep thought. As a result of our somber reflections, we discovered the original source of this kind of research. The likely culprit is the very concept of modern education, which steers future scientists (and others) to see no further than their own fingernail. Just imagine the horror in a patient’s eyes upon seeing a surgeon, about to perform an operation, wielding a selfie stick.
Did you imagine it? Gave you chills, didn’t it?
True, such futurological pedagogical “horror stories” can still only be found on the pages of popular science magazines. Everyday parental consciousness is consumed by other concerns: all thoughts are on how to create greenhouse conditions for raising a prince or princess — so that the happy childhood of one generation might atone for the adult traumas of another.
The entire education system comes to the aid of moms and dads. The global trend toward “childfree” living has led to a planetary shortage of heirs. In the child-centric educational environment, students are pampered and cherished like rare (and therefore valuable) specimens of the future generation. The production of Narcissuses and Napoleons has been put on a conveyor belt. But are all the system’s production capacities fully operational? Let’s examine the reserve capabilities of this vicious circle.
Install mirrors around the entire perimeter of educational institutions
In Russia, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, draconian bans on the use of mobile phones in schools are already in effect at the state level. It’s possible that this digital rollback will soon sweep across the entire world of childhood. Such a turn of events clearly fails to satisfy the growing Narcissuses’ need for self-admiration. The lack of technical ability to take selfies in real time must be compensated for by the mirrored option of mental sketches for future Reels and Stories.
The ancient Narcissus from Ovid’s Metamorphoses withered away over his own reflection in a stream, suffering from unrequited love for himself. Modern “flowers of life” do not wither from self-love. They revel in this passionate attachment. Often, it is their only attachment — they do not waste their best spiritual impulses on acts of care or tolerance toward others. Especially since there aren’t many of those “others” around to begin with. Usually, there are no brothers or sisters. Large families are a happy exception to the sad “childfree” rule. From the parental pair, often only one biological parent remains in the child’s life — having survived the pandemic of divorce with their sense of maternal (less often, paternal) duty intact.
Family loneliness transforms into social loneliness. The protective “glass dome” over a single flower becomes a nature reserve of narcissism at the level of the education system.
Guarantee admiration
The age of social media and the World Wide Web does not lend itself to the ancient Diogenic ideal of self-sufficiency. In a later interpretation of the Greek myth — in Ilya Repin’s famous painting Narcissus — an attentive viewer will notice a significant detail: trying to reach his own reflection, the hero holds tightly onto a tree branch with one hand. That is, something still prevents the self-absorbed youth from falling entirely into the abyss of the “self.”
Repin’s painting was created over a century ago — in the turbulent year of 1917. If the master had taken up his brush in the new millennium, it’s quite likely that instead of a tree branch, Narcissus would have a gadget in his hand — providing a connection to the outside world. This connection is all the stronger the higher the familiar metrics of unconditional admiration: likes, hearts, view counts. Since, as mentioned above, gadgets in educational institutions now have persona non grata status, the pedagogical environment of growing Narcissuses will have to invent new professional methods of caring for — and attending to — their charges.
We have one non-trivial solution to the problem. Ready?
Thrones. That’s precisely what will compensate for the temporary absence of a phone in the hands of the learner. Those very chairs that tower above the mundane surroundings — which could easily be perceived as a metaphor for a fast-track social elevator.
The idea itself was born from the realization that school desks and university lecture halls essentially traumatize the delicate psyche of the Narcissus, defining his social position as “one of many” rather than “the best of all.” The throne room represents a tried-and-tested (by more than one dictatorship) way of organizing communicative space, offering two visual contact options: “top-down” (the privilege of the one seated on the throne) and “bottom-up” for everyone else.
With sufficient pedagogical diligence, Narcissuses transform into Napoleons — individuals whose self-absorption is fueled by power over their surroundings. Specific pedagogical technologies can act as a booster for this process. Let’s examine their side effects.
Replace the imperfect teacher with ideal, ergonomic “student-tailored” apps
Narcissus-pedagogy proceeds from the assumption that every student is naturally (!) a genius. It is fundamentally important that the shadow of an odious Teacher should never fall upon them.
The use of various educational applications is the key to solving the problem of pedagogical “bias,” “authoritarianism,” “incompetence,” and other vices that are discussed and condemned in the closed chat rooms of affected parents and the affected victims themselves of teacher “arbitrariness.” There are a great many programs for teaching “something” and “somehow.” Note that the basic setting of any application is the presumption of the user’s ability to engage in self-education. It is assumed that the user’s universal “skill of learning” has already been pre-installed by some unknown person.
Reconfigure the traditional grading system
Following the principle of that “running in place” that Vladimir Vysotsky sang about — where among the runners, “there are no first and no stragglers.” And there is no triumphant finish line either. Everyone gets a hearty “like” just for participating.
A creative portfolio of such “personal achievements” is now easily padded with “certificates” and “diplomas” proclaiming in golden letters the fact that a certain genius was in the right place at the right time. In the spotlight of the festival-competition stage, the Narcissus feels like a bona fide star in an artificial situation of guaranteed success. No tears of frustration, no silent promises to oneself to conquer an unconquered summit next time.
No need to measure oneself against leaders or cheer on those who lag behind. The rejection of competition and the suppression of the instinctive principle that “the strongest survive” leads to the creation of a utopian model of the world in education. All that remains is to implant this pseudo-successful practice of supplementary education within the walls of mainstream educational institutions. Down with unpleasant grades and sanctions for academic failure, rudeness, and all other “I don’t want to, I won’t” attitudes of the student!
Position the individual learning model as ideal
Casting teachers and subjects, following the student’s biological rhythms, studying without leaving the lounge-like comfort of the family hearth, integrating personalized programs of legalized “personal growth” courses… This, in the understanding of supporters and fans of child-centric pedagogy, is what an acceptable learning capsule looks like. Growing Napoleons do not adapt to the existing education system — they create such a system around themselves. In other words, the eggs teach the hen, with the hen’s consent.
By the way, in childhood, the “historical” Napoleon indeed demanded a special approach. As noted by his biographer, the Swiss scholar Friedrich Kircheisen, at the age of five, the future emperor was placed in the comfortable environment of a girls’ school “to soften his character.” The opportunity to occupy (even temporarily) the throne of the educational universe as the sole male favorite had a strong influence on the future dictator: “Napoleon often later recalled that happy time among the little girls, who obediently and timidly did everything that the wild, unbridled boy demanded of them. He was there in his native element.”
Later, Bonaparte would graduate from the Brienne Military Academy and the Paris Military School. However, the childhood training of soft skills in the cozy atmosphere of universal adoration undoubtedly played a role in shaping the personality of the GENIUS commander. But perhaps we are talking about an evil genius? How else to explain the fact that historical memory firmly attached to him the shameful title of “the Corsican monster”? The narcissism of a tyrant, thirsting for worldwide recognition, cost the French people unjustified sacrifices (by various estimates, up to two million French died at the hands of the dictator).
Let’s Be Frank
The news about the Ig Nobel Prize in Literature being awarded for fascination with one’s own fingernail initially struck us like a dire prophecy from a “Doomsday Radio Station.” Will educational reality surpass our most pessimistic forecasts? Let us hope that the “fingernail phenomenon” remains a journalistic hyperbole, and that the surge of reader interest in Thomas Erikson’s bestseller Surrounded by Narcissists: How to Protect Yourself from Toxic Personalities is merely a spontaneous reaction from viewers who spotted the book in the frame of the popular series The White Lotus.
While living organisms undergo translocation, deletion, and duplication, we offer scientific knowledge without mutations – only useful discoveries and theories.
Thank you!
